More than a hundred tourists held hostage on a boat in Peru’s Amazon region have been freed abroad

“We are talking about 80 domestic tourists and 27 foreign tourists,” Peruvian Trade and Tourism Minister Roberto Sanchez said in a statement from the government palace in the capital, Lima. According to the minister, a government spokesperson, the hostage-taking ended after a dialogue between underground police and tribal leaders.

Peruvian media reported that foreign tourists came from the United States, England, France, Spain, Switzerland and Germany. According to the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Many Belgians‘among them.

Tourists crossed the Maranon River near Cuninico in a passenger boat around noon local time on Thursday, but the boat was stopped halfway by members of the indigenous community. The hostages are angry with the Peruvian government. According to them, he had overlooked oil spills from a forty-year-old pipeline in the river and their disastrous effects. “We have already called the government’s attention 46 times to resolve the oil spill that has already killed two children and a woman,” Angela Ramirez, one of the Peruvian hostages, said in a telephone conversation with Peruvian officials. Broadcasting R.P.B. .

He said “about 150 people” were detained, including a one-month-old baby, children, the elderly, the disabled and pregnant women. Ramirez said the hostages were told they would be held for six to eight days until a resolution was reached to resolve the oil spill and state authority arrived in the region.

Earlier today, it appeared that the hostage situation would not last long. “Following a conversation with the (leader) of the Cuenico communities, our request to release the tourists was granted,” the Peruvian Ombudsman’s office said on Twitter Friday morning local time. He said the release will happen soon.

Tribal Council Chairman Watson Trujillo confirmed the agreement to RPP late in the morning. He said the hostages would be released in a few hours. He said none of the tourists were injured. He said that after the release, the Kuninigo community would continue to protest and block the passage of riverboats until the government provided concrete assistance. “We are forced to take this step to get the attention of a government that has ignored us for eight years,” he told The Associated Press by phone.

Trujillo asked the administration of President Pedro Castillo to declare a state of emergency in the area to deal with the effects of the oil spill. He said oil spills in 2014 and in September 2022 had caused “tremendous damage” to people who depended on river fish as an important part of their diet. “They had to drink oily water and eat contaminated fish without the government caring about it,” he said. The oil spill affected not only the roughly 1,000 people living in his community, but also nearly 80 other communities, many of which had no running water, electricity or telephones.

Communities in the area have previously blocked ships in the river to protest oil spills. The latest spill, which spilled 2,500 barrels of oil into the river, was reported to have occurred on September 16. The roughly 800-kilometer pipeline that carries crude oil from the Amazon region to the northwestern city of Buera is owned by state oil company PetroPeru. He said at the time that the leak was the result of ‘intentional’ tampering. The local authorities are yet to issue a formal notification in this regard.

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